A known water pump is disclosed in JP2003-269165A (hereinafter referred to as Patent reference 1). According to the water pump disclosed in Patent reference 1, a plate-shaped gasket is positioned so as to be sandwiched by a pump body and a fixed member (a cylinder block). The gasket includes an intermediate plate (a separator) and two sheets of metal gaskets. The intermediate plate having a high rigidity separates the pump body from the fixed member to form an inlet space and an outlet space. The respective metal gaskets are positioned at front and back surfaces of the intermediate plate in order to prevent water from leaking to a portion between the pump body and the intermediate plate and to a portion between the fixed member and the intermediate plate.
The intermediate plate includes an inlet opening portion and a supply opening portion. The inlet opening portion in which water supplied from a radiator of an internal combustion engine introduced to an inlet flow passage. The supply opening portion in which the water stored in the inlet flow passage is introduced to the outlet space. An outer rim portion of the intermediate plate is fixed to the pump body and the cover case portion so as to be sandwiched by the pump body and the cover case portion.
According to the water pump disclosed in Patent reference 1, in a case where, for example, a V-engine is mounted to a vehicle, cool water is supplied to two positions that are apart from each other. In this case, an outlet flow passage extends from each of one end and the other end of the pump body to an outside. Because the outlet flow path is covered with the pump body, a space for the pump body comes to be upsized and accordingly, the water pump tends to be upsized. Accordingly, the weight of the water pump increases, resulted in the reduction of the fuel consumption and the high cost of the water pump.
A need thus exists for a water pump which is not susceptible to the drawback mentioned above.